Cabra History.Com

The Gang in New York 2008

In 1974 a farm worker in Britain came across the headless corpse of a young woman wrapped up in a tarpaulin in a country lane. Her head was nowhere to be found. Upon being notified, the local police immediately cordoned off the area. Police believed the young victim to be between 23 and 35 years old and to be no more than 5feet 2 inches in height. After extensive door to door inquiries, 700 statements and questioning 15,000 people the identity of the young victim still remained a mystery. Eventually however a member of the public contacted the police and reported a young woman as possibly missing from the area. All that was known about this person was the fact that she was Irish and that she had left a home address stated to be in the Crbra (incorrect spelling) area of Dublin. The Irish Garda was notified of this and a request was made for assistance in checking out this information. The British police were anxious to either locate this young girl or her family in order to eliminate her from their inquiries. The Gardai informed the British police that they were unable to locate the address (the house number given on the note was actually incorrect). Eventually and unfortunately the story of this young girl became yesterday’s news and was almost forgotten for close on 34 years. In May of 2008 members of the Cold Case Team comprising retired British police force officers and a Cold Case Investigator had the body exhumed hoping to use DNA samples to identify the victim and possibly catch the murderer. While trawling through the original information that police had gathered in 1974 the piece of information relating to Crbra re-surfaced. In some way or other the name Cabra had been mis-spelt as Crbra. Unable to locate any place of that name in Dublin a member of the team tried variations of the spelling and came up with Cabra West. A quick check on the internet brought to light a website called Cabra History.Com. An email was sent to the website asking for assistance in locating the family or the girl mentioned in the original 1974 inquiry. Over a short period of days information relating to the Cabra West girl and her family was quickly relayed to the British police via the Cabra History.Com website.  With the help of this information the police were quickly able to establish that the Cabra West girl is most definitely alive and well to the present day. Thankfully she is not the victim of a savage murder. The Cold Case investigative team have expressed their gratitude to the Cabra History.Com website for the great assistance given to them in finding the reported missing Cabra West girl. Her name will now be removed from their list of inquiries. However the police investigation will continue and hopefully they will soon discover the identity of the young victim and thereby bring to justice the person responsible for her murder.

This photograph was  submitted by Jim Murphy who is originally from Fassaugh Road. Jim now resides in the great U.S. of A. The photo shows a young football team from Saint Anthony’s Boys Club who at the time may have been based in Eccles Street. The photo was taken over sixty years ago. The names of the young footballers are, front row: John Cummins, his brother Tony Cummins  (their mother was a dealer in Moore Street. They lived on Jarleth Road), Sean Doherty from Fassaugh Road…facing the Playground, Jemmers Mc Kendrick and Philip Brady (from Fassaugh Road, beside the Fassaugh Stores). The front row is: Unsure, Jim Murphy, Goalkeeper Buggy, Anthony Scanlon lived two doors away from the Murphy’s on Fassaugh Road. His mother was also a dealer in Moore Street, Tierney and Morrissey. Jim tells me that some of these lads came from Attracta  Road. Perhaps there are others who may also know some of these lads.

Cabra West hurling supporters travel to Navan in 1951 to shout on the lads. Many thanks to Olive Carr nee Jackson for the latest set of photographs in the Cabra West gallery.